Although the United Kingdom has abolished capital punishment, John E. Townsend, who led the Conservative Party for many years, is a strong advocate for bringing back the death penalty in Britain (Two). He says there has been a great demand in Britain for many years for a referendum in Britain so people would be able to vote just on the issue of the death penalty, which he says most of the ordinary people are in favor of. There is still strong majority support for the death penalty in Britain, with people believing in the biblical ôan eye for an eyeö and many of them feeling capital punishment is a deterrent. He says that when Britain did have the death penalty, criminals usually did not carry arms. While many say capital punishment does not deter criminals, he points to statistics that show the murder rate dropping in the United States after capital punishment was reinstated.

Townsend says that throughout Europe, conservative politicians and others on the right favor capital punishment, while socialists and other left-wing politicians are opposed, but at the man-in-the-street leve

Page, Clarence. ôConservatives become death penalty critics.ö Philadelphia Business Journal. 19(13) (2000): 63.

To counter claims that execution is barbaric, Koch points out that even though many states have adopted lethal injection for capital cases, death penalty opponents still arenÆt satisfied, so it is obviously not the methods they oppose (Wood, 715). Koch believes that even though we may not like the death penalty, we must keep it for the punishment of cold-blooded murderers for whom nom other punishment is sufficient. In response to religious arguments that ôThou shalt not kill,ö Koch refers to the original Hebrew version of the bible which says though shalt not commit murder, which gives the death penalty a different connotation (Wood 717). He points out that the Torah specifies capital punishment for a variety of offenses, and that most of the great philosophers throughout history, including Ksnt, Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Mill agree that natural law properly authorizes the sovereign to take life in order to vindicate justice. Alexis de Tocqueville believed that the death penalty was indispensable to the support of social order. Even the United States Constitution, which condemns cruel and unusual punishment, does not cond